Why Use A Sledgehammer When A Feather duster Will do?

Recently, a new system administrator called in about a problem that his organization was having related to automated overnight processing operations hanging. Credit Cards weren’t settling and their daily sales were not posting. This was later determined to be primarily due to a script that their previous MIS person had set-up to "Kill" open users processes. These processes involved users who were not logging out of their Point of Sale software before leaving for the day. This specific script had embedded commands in use that were too forceful, and it was actually corrupting some of their data and corresponding index files. What was being done was tantamount to using Sledgehammer to do a job that a Feather duster would have been more than adequate for.

This reminds me of a another parallel story that a friend once told me…

As a youngster, this individual used to go Squirrel and Rabbit hunting in the woods with his younger brother. Normally they took along air rifles or one of their fathers .22 caliber rifles. It wasn’t unusual for them to come back with at least a little something for the family stew pot.

However, early one day, the eldest boy going to the tool shed to gather their rifles, noticed that his father had taken out his favorite Deer Rifle for cleaning. This was a 12 gauge, heavy barreled, rifled, slug gun. "Hey, lets take that!", he exclaimed. Grabbing the gun and a box of shells, both of the now grinning boys trotted off to the nearby forest.

Later that day as the boys came back from the hunt, they quietly put away the rifles. Head hung low, with nothing for the dinner table, the older boy quietly shuffles over to father, who was on the porch fixing Grandma’s Rocking Chair. He says rather quietly, "Well Dad, I guess that I learned a valuable lesson today…", then pausing with a big sigh. His father briefly stopped working, and looked up… What’s that son?" he asked. "Well, I guess that it doesn’t make sense to hunt Squirrels and Rabbits with a Deer Rifle." adding, "My shoulder is really sore too…" Upon hearing this, the younger brother chirps in with …"Yeah, and there ain’t much left of them when you nail em with a 12 gauge!".

So… It is generally not recommended that one use a Sledgehammer (or a 12 gauge) on something when another tool or option would have been more appropriate.